LOS ANGELES >> Federal authorities Wednesday arrested 18 El Monte Flores gang members and associates who used the former offices of the Boys & Girls Club as their hangout.

The 18 were among 41 people indicted by a federal grand jury last week on charges that include conspiracy, murder, drug trafficking, money laundering, and weapons violations.

Federal officials said the gang conducted illegal activities out of the Boys & Girls Club of America/San Gabriel Valley Club facilities on Mountain View Road.

“They used the club as a place where they would openly sell drugs and collect taxes,” said Vijay Rathi, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The gang also used the club, which recently held community meetings and hosted a car wash fundraiser for a Flores member who was murdered.

“It is very disturbing that a facility that is supposed to give boys and girls protection and a safe place could be used for that,” Mayor Andrew Quintero said.

Authorities also said the gang wanted black people out of South El Monte and El Monte and attacked them.

Assistant United States Attorney Jeff Mitchell of the Violent and Organized Crime Section said eight of the 41 suspects are fugitives. The other 15 were already in state and federal prison on unrelated charges, he added.

Seventeen of the suspects pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court, according to Mitchell. They are set for trial Sept. 23.

An 18th suspect was arrested Wednesday afternoon. No court date has been set for him.

“We took some bad people off the street today,” El Monte Police Capt, David Vautrin said.

Advertisement

He said El Monte Flores is the city’s largest gang and are involved in everything from robberies to drug trafficking.

Also known as EMF, the gang has had an estimated 800 members since it was formed in the 1960s. The multi-generational Latino gang claims South El Monte and El Monte as its turf.

The gang’s name originated from the Las Flores Barrio, so named for the flower field in the area, that was located in the South El Monte. “Las Flores” translates to “the flowers” in Spanish.

The 62-count indictment, which was unsealed Wednesday, alleged gang members and associates conspired to distribute and distributed heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs. The gang allegedly extorted “taxes” from vendors selling fraudulent documents at Crawford’s Plaza at Valley Boulevard and Garvey Avenue as well as from drug dealers at Crawford’s Plaza and the apartments on Klingerman Street.

The gang pays “taxes” or “tribute” to the Mexican Mafia or La Eme, a powerful prison-based gang who controls Latino gangs in Southern California.

The facility has not operated as an official Boys & Girls Club for years, according to Mary Hewitt, executive director of the Los Angeles County Alliance for Boys & Girls Clubs.

“Their charter was revoked in 2012,” she said. She did not know the reasons why.

“It is not an operating club at all. It is like someone hijacked the building and took it over,” she continued. “It is sad to be associated with that. We work so hard to make sure to offer the safest place for kids, we take so many measures.”

Councilwoman Norma Macias said she has received “numerous complaints about the types of activities and people loitering around the Boys & Girls Club.”

Macias said she was very disappointed when she shared the community’s complaints with city staff and learned the facility was no longer operating as an official Boys & Girls Club.

“It was very upsetting to me. It is absolutely a loss for the community,” she said. “I found that whole situation to be very disturbing — why hasn’t there been more outreach about it?”

Still, the facility continues to go by the name Boys & Girls Club of San Gabriel Valley and is offering free meals to children this summer.

Rathi said the gang would tax local drug dealers who were not affiliated with the gang and wanted to sell in El Monte. The gang also offered protection in exchange for a payment.

The members used the Boys and Girls Club as a place where taxes were paid and collected. Rathi said the activity took place inside the facility.

He said the indictment does not allege that Boys and Girls Club members were involved in the gang.

El Monte Flores is also accused of targeting black people. According to the indictment, blacks were attacked, threatened and subjected to racial epithets by EMF gang members in incidents stemming back to 2001.

On Feb. 23, 2001, two gang members approached a black man at a party held in the gang’s territory. They told the man to get out, used a racial slur, attacked him and chased him, according to the indictment. The duo also yelled “El Monte Flores,” during the attack.

“(The gang) intimidated African Americans in an effort to drive them out,” Rathi of the DEA said.

Less than one percent of the population in El Monte and South El Monte is black, according to the U.S. Census.

On Wednesday, more than 400 law enforcement officers hit 20 locations and arrested 17 people. One of the locations was in San Bernardino County, the rest were in Los Angeles County.

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said the gang’s crimes also include the execution of a former Mexican Mafia member and the fatal shooting of four others on Maxson Road in 1995. The indictment also outlines an ongoing dispute involving members of the Mexican Mafia who are attempting to exercise control over the gang.

One of the Mexican Mafia members, 52-year-old James “Chemo” Gutierrez, is the lead defendant in the case and the alleged leader of El Monte Flores. He is in federal custody after his supervised release following a 20-year sentence in a federal homicide case was revoked, Mrozek said.

Other Mexican Mafia members serving life prison terms were not charged in the indictment but were listed as co-conspirators.

El Monte Flores was under the authority of one Mexican Mafia member who was identified in the court documents as F.B.

F.B. is likely Frankie Buelna. Buelna and Enrique Sanchez were shot and killed in Characters Sports Bar on 1st Street in Pomona in November 2007. Buelna ran emeros in El Monte, Pomona and Ontario and played a key role in the 1993 consolidation of Sureno street gangs in Southern California.

Five members of the Mexican Mafia including James Gutierrez were trying to lay claim to the El Monte Flores territory following Buelna’s assassination, said Mitchell, the federal prosecutor.

One of the would-be heirs already controlled another gang.

Among those charged in the federal indictment are former fugitive and Baldwin Park murder suspect Johnny Mata, 33, who could face the death penalty if convicted of the fatal Dec. 24, 2010, shooting of a rival gang member. He’s also accused of attempted murder in connection with a later shooting.

Mata was first arrested by El Monte police in connection with the fatal shooting in May of 2012. But he became the subject of an international manhunt when Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials mistakenly released him from custody in April of 2013, due to what officials described as a clerical error. A task force found Mata in Mexico May 7 and re-captured him.

Also named in the RICO case is Richard Castro Rodriguez, 27, who is accused of possessing a gun for the furtherance of a drug trafficking crime in July of 2011.

Rodriguez was at the center of a controversy in May of 2009, when a television news helicopter recorded an El Monte police officer kicking him in the head as he was surrendering at the end of a pursuit in Pico Rivera. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has determined the officer acted justly. Rodriguez filed a lawsuit over the incident.

Each defendant faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted as charged, “and potentially decades more depending on which additional offenses they are charged with,” according to Mrozek.

Additionally, prosecutors are seeking to seize any funds or properties determined to be connected to the alleged criminal conspiracy.

Local leaders said the gang isn’t nearly as active as it was in the 1990s.

“That is not to say it doesn’t exist, it is just less conspicuous,” Mayor Quintero said.

“We have been very aggressive for the last few decades as much as possible,” agreed Councilwoman Macias. “Residents have time after time supported measures related to public safety, such as Measure GG.”

Likewise, in South El Monte, Councilman Joe Gonzales said he hasn’t seen a big presence of gang members for years.

“For the most part it has been very under control,” he said.

Councilmembers said they were not aware of gang members targeting blacks in the community.

Crimes are not just a way of life, but a source of pride for EMF gang members, federal authorities allege.

“El Monte Flores gang members take pride in the crimes committed by other El Monte Flores gang members and believe the commission of their crimes enhances the status of the entire El Monte Flores gang in the eyes of other criminal street gangs and the Mexican Mafia, a powerful criminal organization that operated from within California state and federal prison systems and exerts control both within and outside the prison system,” according to the indictment.

”El Monte Flores gang members also believe that their commission of crimes, particularly crimes of violence — ranging from battery to murder — enhances their standing within the El Monte Flores gang itself and can lead them to attain greater status within the gang.”

The case was a joint investigation by the DEA and El Monte Police. The IRS and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also involved in the investigation which started in 2010.